TY - JOUR
T1 - Dynamic pore-scale network modeling of spontaneous water imbibition in shale and tight reservoirs
AU - Wang, Xiukun
AU - Sheng, James J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work is supported by the Foundation of China Postdoctoral Science (2019M660933), Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Prospecting (PRP/indep-4-1814) and the Opening Fund of Key Laboratory of Unconventional Oil & Gas Development (19CX05005A-3).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - Spontaneous water imbibition plays an imperative role in the development of shale or tight oil reservoirs. Spontaneous water imbibition is helpful in the extraction of crude oil from the matrix, although it decreases the relative permeability of the hydrocarbon phase dramatically. The dynamic pore-scale network modeling of water imbibition in shale and tight reservoirs is presented in this work; pore network generation, local capillary pressure function, conductance calculation and boundary conditions for imbibition are all presented in detail in this paper. The pore network is generated based on the characteristics of Barnett shale formations, and the corresponding laboratory imbibition experiments are matched using this established dynamic pore network model. The effects of the wettability, throat aspect ratio, viscosity, shape factor, micro-fractures, etc. are all investigated in this work. Attempts are made to investigate the water imbibition mechanisms from a micro-scale perspective. According to the simulated results, wettability dominates the imbibition characteristics. Besides this, the viscous effects including viscosity, initial capillary pressure and micro-fractures increase the imbibition rate, while the final recovery factor is more controlled by the capillarity effect including the cross-area shape factor, contact angle and the average pore-throat aspect ratio.
AB - Spontaneous water imbibition plays an imperative role in the development of shale or tight oil reservoirs. Spontaneous water imbibition is helpful in the extraction of crude oil from the matrix, although it decreases the relative permeability of the hydrocarbon phase dramatically. The dynamic pore-scale network modeling of water imbibition in shale and tight reservoirs is presented in this work; pore network generation, local capillary pressure function, conductance calculation and boundary conditions for imbibition are all presented in detail in this paper. The pore network is generated based on the characteristics of Barnett shale formations, and the corresponding laboratory imbibition experiments are matched using this established dynamic pore network model. The effects of the wettability, throat aspect ratio, viscosity, shape factor, micro-fractures, etc. are all investigated in this work. Attempts are made to investigate the water imbibition mechanisms from a micro-scale perspective. According to the simulated results, wettability dominates the imbibition characteristics. Besides this, the viscous effects including viscosity, initial capillary pressure and micro-fractures increase the imbibition rate, while the final recovery factor is more controlled by the capillarity effect including the cross-area shape factor, contact angle and the average pore-throat aspect ratio.
KW - Dynamic pore network modeling
KW - Shale reservoirs
KW - Water imbibition
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092223883&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/en13184709
DO - 10.3390/en13184709
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092223883
VL - 13
JO - Energies
JF - Energies
SN - 1996-1073
IS - 18
M1 - 4709
ER -